Still, after a six-month run on Broadway, the show folded like a cheap training bra — so what makes director Norb Joerder think he can sell “Little Women” at Wagner College?

“Everything is there,” he says. “We’ve just kind of upped it.”

The national tour version — on the college’s Main Stage this weekend and next — is slightly different from the Broadway edition. It introduces a chorus to the cast, and uses a script that fills in some of the original production’s gaps (one New York Times reviewer griped that watching the show felt like “speed-reading” the novel).

The musical suffered because it wasn’t thoroughly workshopped off-Broadway, says Joerder. “I don’t think it was given a chance. If it doesn’t get rave reviews, producers don’t want to bank roll it.”

He tweaks the touring version further by adding an on-stage death and choreography — keeping the piece to two hours.

“I’ve tried to get as close to what I thought was missing from the musical and put it back in there,” says Joerder, a frequent guest director at Wagner College, which boasts a theater program ranked No. 3 in the nation by the Princeton Review last year.

As generations of readers can attest, Louisa May Alcott’s semi-autobiographical 1868 title, “Little Women,” follows four sisters — Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy — as they experience family life in Concord, Mass., during the Civil War. Romances spark, sickness develops and dreams are hatched. The musical puts the emphasis on Jo, the ahead-of-her-time heroine intent on becoming a writer. Sutton Foster, fresh off her Tony-winning run in “Thoroughly Modern Millie,” originated the role on Broadway in December 2004.

Wagner junior Kerri McNeill, 20, portrays the budding feminist — played on film by everyone from Katherine Hepburn to Winona Ryder — in the Staten Island staging.

“I love that she took what she wanted from her heart and followed it completely,” says the actress from Metuchen, N.J., who has appeared in seven Wagner Main Stage productions. “I feel like this role is kind of close to my heart.”

College casts are particularly well-matched to “Little Women.” Not only are they age appropriate, but they also identify with the characters’ emotional developments.

“I think it’s fascinating to sort of go back in time and explore what people went through in 1868,” says stage manager Lauren Heirings, 21, a Wagner senior from Memphis, Tenn. “Women of that day kind of grew up and got married. Now women have options. These girls are at a crossroads of their lives, and here we are in 2010 at the crossroads of our lives. It’s different, but, at the same time, it’s the same.”

No doubt, “Little Women” is a period piece. For this show, Wagner costume designer Alan Michael Smith fits the women in bloomers, corsets, and hoop skirts.

“It makes them properly move for the period,” he says. “They’re not completely restricting, but it changes how you walk, how you go through doorways, how you sit. It changes the physical movement of the actress.”

The revolving set is equally large. The cast moves about a two-story house, into an attic and dances in a ballroom.

“It’s kind of like watching a film,” says Joerder. “This is as close to Broadway as you can get.”